I Completely Changed By Cutting Out Toxic Friendships & Why You Should Too

In a little under 9 months I feel like I have completely changed as a person and I have never been happier. For years I was pushed into being someone I wasn’t proud of, I was always aiming to please someone who was only interested in pleasing themselves. Now my mantra I like to live by is “Be your best self” my friends have all probably heard me say this at one point because I think it’s so important to aim to be the best you you can be and lately I’ve become a lot happier with who I am. I do still have a long way to go before I will be 100% happy with who I am, but hey we’re all human. I’m in a much better place now than I was this time last year, I still make mistakes and each day I grow a little more into being who I want to be by learning from these mistakes. This post is a bit longer than usual, but I didn’t want to cut out too much of the story of what I went through, so do bear with me and hopefully I can help someone out there going through a similar situation.

For a back story on what I was like a year ago, I was friends with someone who never allowed me to grow, in fact she held me back in many aspects of my life. I’m not writing this to cause any drama with this particular person, but I feel as though my experience is important to share because if I’d read someone telling me all this a few years ago who knows, I would’ve been happier a lot earlier. I don’t blame this person for my experiences because obviously I always had the choice to leave, however if you’ve ever been in my situation even if you can go you’re stuck in a way because you’re “tied” to the person.

Ever since I was little I’ve loved adventuring and building things and going out of my comfort zone, I loved surrounding myself with all my friends and being free to do what I wanted. I’m very independent and to this day I love my time and space and I’m not a huge fan of someone controlling what I do. I gave most, if not all, of this up while being friends with this person. She never went out of her comfort zone so I stayed there too, I sat on the couch at parties while all my other friends were dancing and socializing with everyone. I always did what she wanted because I’d lost my voice to stand up for myself. This was the hardest thing, losing my voice. I was over being made to feel guilty because I didn’t do what she wanted, so instead of standing up for myself, I gave in and did what she wanted instead. In a friendship there needs to be an element of compromise and while I was trying to compromise and do what would make her happy I stopped doing anything that would make me happy, compromise is a balance and I clearly forgot about that because it became a one way street where I had no control over what was happening.

If I was myself she would “jokingly” say how weird or how annoying I was, sure the first few times I laughed it off but when you spend years hearing how annoying you are everyday, even if it was meant as a joke, it gets under your skin. I stopped being as outgoing as I used to be and I wasn’t myself anymore. I’m bubbly, I’m loud, I’m outgoing and I love to make people laugh yet I let this one person take that all away from me. I was scared that everyone else found me annoying like she did. Everything I said and did, I over analysed to the point where I thought that all my friends didn’t like me. I let one person make me feel that way and I never should’ve let that happen but there’s a point where you start to over think and everything spirals. In a way, although I can’t say for sure, there had to be an element of control this girl wanted to have over me. I was there whenever she needed me because she’d made me isolate myself from everyone else, by making me believe that I was annoying and a nuisance that nobody wanted to deal with. Couple that with the personal issues I was going through and lets just say I was not in a healthy state of mind and where a friend should be helping she was pushing me further down.

One thing that really sucked was that because I felt like everyone else found me annoying I pushed my self away from them. I so desperately wanted to be friends with them but I’d always be so worried that they found me annoying all the time. Obviously I was overreacting and none of my friends thought that but at the time I didn’t see it that way. A few weeks ago I was talking to two of my closest friends about how I feel like I’ve become so much closer with everyone, they both said that when I was friends with this person they felt like they couldn’t talk to me because it was an “exclusive friendship” and they weren’t apart of it in a sense, basically they wanted to talk to me but this girl cut me off from them and them off from me. This was really hard to hear because all I wanted was to be friends with them, but because I was putting one persons happiness before my own I caused my friendships with others to be compromised. It’s never easy to cut off a friendship because I never wanted to be mean, but in the end her behaviour and the way she was treating me and my other friends sent me over the edge so I cut ties with her, I was sick of being thrown around by her emotionally so I ended it and even though it was tough I am so so so much happier now, happier than I’ve ever been.

One door closed and so many more opened, I’m finally myself and guess what?! People actually like me for the person I am. The things I was made to feel like were annoying actually make me who I am and I’m able to make my friends happy without compromising who I am and my own happiness. I’m getting vv emotional writing this because this year I’ve become so much closer with all my other friends and I wouldn’t even call them my friends anymore they’re like my family, I can turn to them when I’m sad and I know that they love me for who I am and accept me no matter what (corny but true).

The moral I suppose of this whole long story is that if someone is holding you back from creating other friendships or from being who you want to be then sometimes it’s for the best that you end the friendship. In no way am I suggesting you cut off all your friends who’ve done one bad thing to you, you’re never going to get along with everyone all the time, that’s normal. Whats not normal is someone making you feel like no one likes you and continually belittling you to the point where you feel so small that you can’t cope. That is a toxic friendship and as hard as it can be, if someone is dragging you down, you can’t let them, you either need to talk about it with them or end it.

That’s how in under a year I completely changed, I started to surround myself with people who bring out the best in me not the worst and even though its hard sometimes, cutting ties with someone who you have an unhealthy relationship with is the best thing to do. If I compare who I was this time a year ago I don’t even recognise who I used to be, I’ve changed for the better and a few of my friends have said that they’ve noticed how much I’ve changed, now I’m friends with everyone because I’m not nervous constantly about what people think of me, I make the effort to talk to everyone and I’ve become closer with all of my friends which is something I would never trade for the world. My friend sent me this message when I was talking to her about it last night:

“I can just see how you’ve changed and it’s just so amazing to see you becoming this incredible person I always knew you were. Your comfortable not only to those around you but in yourself and that’s an amazing thing to have. I can see how you’ve changed in such a short amount of time and that’s a hard thing to do but you’ve done it almost effortlessly. It’s just so great to see because I’ve known you for so long and you’ve been such an important person in most of my highschool life and to see you blossom as a person is incredible to see and because of that I’m so proud. Love you lots xxxxxxxxx”

I think that’s a nice note to end this very long post on, just trust yourself and remember that your happiness is just as important as everyone else’s. Love you all and if you did read till the end thank you and I’ll be posting a few shorter more beauty and fashion posts for those of you who refer them for the next few posts xx.

This is such a lovely post that you have been really brave to put out there but I’m so glad you did as it’s such an important message that I’m sure will benefit a lot of people. I’m so pleased to hear that your are now much happier with lovely friends who support you and I hope you continue being happy because you deserve it girl!! Sending lots of love xx

Toxic friendships are hard! You should be so proud of yourself because you were able to make yourself as happy as possible. I’m currently going through friendship drama and it’s exhausting! I just can’t wait to go college and meet new people and have a fresh start. Thank you for sharing a personal experience❤🌹

Exactly, once you leave high school there are so many new people to become friends with and you’re so lovely that I’m sure you’ll make tons of friends, I hope your friendship drama ends. Thank you for reading xx 💞💞

This was such a brave but brilliant and truthful post to wrote! It’s great to hear that your cutting out that one bad friendship and what a big difference it as made on your life, glad your happy again! 💘

This was such a brave yet brilliant post and so truthful which I’m sure will help many people! It’s great to hear that by cutting out that one friendship, that its had such a big difference on you and your life in general. Glad your happy 💘
Love Somachi x
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